SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE ON ROMAN HISTORY AND MODERN AMERICA

SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE ISSUE
July 24, 2006

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Vol. 22, No. 15 July 24, 2006

COVER STORY
INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY
12 Spy Nation

▲
by William Norman Grigg — Does the centralized intelligence system
created by the Bush administration really make us safer?

19 Emerging Police State
by Thomas R. Eddlem — Imprisonment without trial and the torture
of prisoners are hallmarks of an oppressive police state, yet George
Bush and his administration openly promote these practices.

Illustartion by Mario Noche
23 Administration Resents “Swift” Kick
by Warren Mass — After the press reported that a secret operation
following the money trails to terrorists was including financial dealings
of innocent citizens, the neo-conservatives lashed back.

25 The NSA and Domestic Spying
by Warren Mass — Warrantless surveillance has become a concern for
both sides of the political spectrum, but it’s still being defended. DEPARTMENTS
27 Before 9/11 5 From the Editor
by Dennis Behreandt — It’s now five years since the 9/11 attacks and
serious questions remain unanswered. Among these is whether or not the
U.S. government had prior warning of the attacks. 7 Insider Report
• Deep-sixing Senate Inquiry Into Iraq
Intel Failure
31 What Government Can Do to You • CIA Disbands Unit That Has Tracked
by R. Cort Kirkwood — Our government has steadily, and increasingly bin Laden
openly, treated Americans as dispensable assets — to be used or • Falling Into al-Qaeda’s Trap
discarded at will. • Costs of War — and Bad Intelligence
• White House, GOP, Dems Court
La Raza Radicals
FEATURES 11 QuickQuotes
HISTORY — THE ENEMY WITHIN • Whom Are We Arresting?
• Bush Defends Spying on Americans
34 Players, Plans, and Betrayals
by William F. Jasper — During WWII, intelligence operatives and private
interests sought to infiltrate and influence American operations. 41 Exercising the Right
• Car Wash Washout
TV REVIEW
• War at Home

39 TV’s 24: Entertaining — As Fiction
▲

43 Correction, Please!
by John Nelson — Weekly “lifeboat” decisions of
• Increasing Unemployment
super-agent Jack Bauer protect the lives of fictional
With Minimum Effort
millions, but without addressing the real moral
consequences of situational ethics.
AP

THE LAST WORD
44 Immigration & Integration COVER Illustration by Mario Noche
by Christopher S. Bentley

Virtue is a choice.
Make it a habit.
Virtue • the moral excellence
evident in my life as I consistently
do what is right

Sponsored by

Putting Character First!®

FROM THE EDITOR
Publisher
John F. McManus

E
Editor
very country needs to possess the was attacked on 9/11, it was the local first
Gary Benoit ability to protect itself against en- responders — from the private citizens
emies both foreign and domestic, aboard United Flight 93 to the firemen
Senior Editors or it will lose its freedom. Necessary pro- and police officers who rushed into the
William Norman Grigg tections include not only police and armed burning WTC towers — who provided the
William F. Jasper
forces but also intelligence services. most heroic defense on that tragic day. And
Copy Editor But the power to protect can be used it was the federal government that failed.
Kurt Williamsen to impose tyranny as well as to safeguard As Dennis Behreandt notes in his “Before
liberty. In fact, human nature being what 9/11” article (page 27), even Arabic school
Contributors it is, governmental agencies authorized to kids in New York City knew something big
Dennis J. Behreandt
use deadly force or to snoop will inevitably was coming down, yet the federal intelli-
Christopher S. Bentley
Steven J. DuBord become oppressive — unless those powers gence community supposedly didn’t have
Thomas R. Eddlem are constrained by a system of law that pro- a clue.
Jodie Gilmore tects the governed from the government. Amazingly, the 9/11 tragedy is routine-
William P. Hoar “If men were angels, no government ly cited as “justification” for centralizing
Warren Mass
would be necessary,” James Madison, the power in Washington, with local and state
Michael E. Telzrow
Joe Wolverton II, J.D. father of the U.S. Constitution, observed. police agencies becoming mere adminis-
“If angels were to govern men, neither trative subdivisions of the emerging in-
Editorial Assistant external nor internal controls on govern- telligence behemoth in Washington. This
Ann Shibler ment would be necessary.” Understand- despite the fact that federal agents in the
ing that men are not angels, the Founding field had provided important pieces of the
Art Director
Joseph W. Kelly Fathers created a system of government puzzle to their superiors in Washington,
that not only limited governmental powers and the people in charge ignored them.
Desktop Publishing Specialist but divided those powers among the three This consolidation of power in the name of
Steven J. DuBord branches of government and between the fighting terrorism may someday become
federal government and the states. Under far more destructive of our liberties than
Research
Mary Benoit the U.S. Constitution, the powers of the al-Qaeda ever could. (See “Spy Nation” by
Brian T. Farmer federal government are few and specified, William Norman Grigg, page 12.)
Bonnie M. Gillis and all other powers “are reserved to the Outlandish? Not when you consider the
States respectively, or to the people.” evidence, much of which has been assem-
Marketing The local, state, and federal govern- bled in this magazine. Consider, for ex-
Larry Greenley
George R. Kotalik ments all have important roles to play in ample, the “Emerging Police State” article
John H. Nelson protecting the public. The federal gov- by Thomas R. Eddlem (page 19), which
ernment is authorized to provide for the documents that imprisonment without trial
Web Manager national defense, but law enforcement is and even torture have become open prac-
Brian Witt supposed to be principally a local respon- tices under the Bush administration.
Advertising/Circulation sibility, with the police accountable to the Those who think that domestic spying is
Julie DuFrane communities they protect and serve. Such a necessary sacrifice that must be endured
an arrangement prevents a central gov- to fight terrorism should ask themselves
ernment from using a nationalized police why our own government has begun treat-
force to consolidate power — along the ing the American people as the enemy in-
lines of what has happened in the past in stead of securing our borders to prevent real
Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. enemies from getting into the United States
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920-749-3784 • 920-749-3785 (fax) zens, intelligence powers have been di- not have to sacrifice liberty for security;
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intelligence units to congressional investi- centralized, constitutionally sound police
$13.50). Copyright ©2006 by American Opin- gating committees. and intelligence services we once had. ■
ion Publishing, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at When our nation — GARY BENOIT
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THE NEW AMERICAN • JULY 24, 2006 5

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INSIDER REPORT

Deep-sixing Senate Inquiry Into Iraq Intel Failure
During 2004 Senate hearings into prewar intelligence on Iraq, section of the report dealing with prewar public statements by the
Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intel- administration “is said to be a matter of such deep division and
ligence Committee, deferred until after the election an inquiry contention that it might never be completed,” reported York. This
into the most contentious issue: whether Bush administration of- is because committee Democrats want to focus on administration
ficials consciously relied on misinformation in crafting prewar statements, while Roberts and his allies want to include state-
statements about Saddam’s arsenal. In April, Senator Roberts ments about Saddam’s arsenal made by prominent Democrats
promised that “Phase II” of the investigation begun two years as well.
ago — the long-deferred examination of the question of “cooked” It was, of course, the administration that presented both Con-
intelligence — was completed, and the report would be forthcom- gress and the American people with the case for war — a case
ing as soon as committee members had reviewed it. built on falsehood and distortions. But Roberts, who has a de-
In mid-June, National Review contributor Byron York indi- served reputation as one of the White House’s most dutiful ser-
cated that Sen. Roberts had found another excuse to delay pub- vants in Congress, insists that both sets of statements should be
lication of the report, which would be politically damaging to examined — chiefly, one suspects, because the resulting partisan
the administration and the GOP in the upcoming elections. The fight will keep the report bottled up indefinitely.

CIA Disbands Unit That Has
Tracked bin Laden
National Public Radio reported on July 3 that the CIA’s
special unit that has been searching for al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden has been shut down. The New York
Times, citing unnamed intelligence officials, reported on
July 4 that the CIA’s bin Laden unit, code-named “Alec
Station,” had been disbanded last year. According to the
Times, the anonymous officials said that the change reflects
a view that al-Qaeda’s hierarchy has changed, and terror-
ist attacks inspired by the group are now being carried out
independently of bin Laden and his second-in-command,
Ayman al-Zawahiri.
After 9/11, President Bush had said that he wanted bin
Laden “dead or alive.”
AP

Persistence of evil: Osama bin Laden continues to captivate and inspire
Muslim radicals — which makes the CIA’s decision to close its “Alec
Falling Into al-Qaeda’s Trap Station” unit devoted to tracking the terror chief all the more puzzling.

Defenders of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq have often in- dium-scale attacks.” The manual concludes that the 9/11 attack
voked the “flypaper strategy” — namely, the idea that by attract- “forced the U.S. to fall into the ‘trap’ of overextending their
ing Islamist radicals to Iraq, the United States would be fighting military” and that “it began to become clear to the American
them “over there” rather than “over here.” administration that it was being drained.”
The problem is this: getting the United States mired in Rather than plotting to attack the U.S. homeland, al-Qaeda
Mesopotamia is central to al-Qaeda’s strategy. To borrow a prefers to draw the U.S. into distant fights in the Muslim world,
phrase from Steinbeck’s classic novella The Moon Is Down, concludes Will McCants, a West Point fellow.
the Islamist movement sees the United States as the flies in this “Naji [author of the al-Qaeda study] believes the way you re-
scenario, and are quite happy to have the “flies” conquer the ally hurt empires is to make them commit their military far from
“flypaper.” their base of operations,” McCants observes. Naji doesn’t support
That strategy is mapped out in The Management of Savage- further 9/11-style attacks on the U.S. “because right now he feels
ry, a 268-page document written by al-Qaeda insider Abu Bakr al-Qaeda has the upper hand in the public relations battle” in
Naji and recently published in an English translation by the the Muslim world. “The point is to make [the U.S.] come in” as
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. As summarized by invaders, where the Muslims who fight our troops will “be seen
ABC News: “Al-Qaeda’s strategic vision involves challenging as fighting the crusaders directly so you’ll win over the public....
the United States and its allies overseas using small- to me- That’s the way they want to get to the U.S.”


INSIDER REPORT

Costs of War — and Bad Intelligence
Vice President Cheney’s office to circumvent established intel-
ligence channels in the CIA, Defense Department, and State De-
partment. Most of the intelligence community rejected the OSP’s
conclusions about Saddam’s arsenal, connections to al-Qaeda,
and the likely consequences of invading Iraq. However, the ad-
ministration chose to act on the OSP’s intelligence, which proved
to be nothing but ideologically motivated disinformation. And the
costs of that decision will mount into the foreseeable future.
A Congressional Research Service report published in April
“concluded that Lindsey’s estimate was, indeed, way off — but in
the other direction,” notes Matthew Yglesias in the July 5 issue of
American Prospect. “About $261 billion had already been spent”
on the war. But that figure doesn’t take into account the radiating
social and economic consequences of the war, which will last for
decades and inflict tremendous costs on our nation.
“Wartime appropriations do not, for example, include the cost
of disability payments to veterans wounded in the war, payments
AP that will continue throughout their life spans,” continues Ygle-
The costs of the bad intelligence behind the Iraq War are measured
not only in dollars, but in irreplaceable lives lost, families disrupted sias. “Nor do they cover the costs of medical treatments for those
through separation, and lasting enmities that have been sown. seriously injured in the war, or even such basic war-related costs
as the replacement of equipment and munitions expended in the
In September 2002, then-White House economic adviser Law- conflict or the need to transport soldiers back to their home bases
rence Lindsey predicted that war with Iraq would cost as much as when they rotate out of the country. The war has also substantially
$200 billion. His candor about the costs of the war got him fired. increased the military’s overall recruiting costs, reflected in big-
After all, Lindsey’s estimate was denounced as “very, very high” ger bonuses and additional recruiters.”
according to Budget Director Mitch Daniels, who stated that the These factors, explain the estimate published in a study by
war would cost no more than $60 billion — substantially less than left-leaning, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and
the first Gulf War, which cost $80 billion. Deputy Defense Sec- Harvard budget expert Linda Blimes, indicate that the final costs
retary Paul Wolfowitz underbid even that figure, predicting that of the Iraq war will be $1.27 trillion.
Iraq’s oil revenues would be used to pay for the war — meaning “The number is so high as to defy human comprehension,”
that the conflict would effectively pay for itself. comments Yglesias. “A trillion is what you get if you spend a
The initial Bush administration cost projections assumed that million dollars a day … for a million days. That’s 2,737 years”
the conquest of Iraq would be brief, complete, and almost entirely — a million dollars a day, every day, “until the Year of Our Lord
unopposed. This was the conclusion promoted by the Pentagon’s 4743. Or, working backward, from the time when Homer wrote
Office of Special Plans (OSP), an ad-hoc group created through the Iliad up to now.”

NSA and CIA Domestic Spying Programs Presaged in Proposed TIA
The ongoing partisan wrangling over exposure of two major do- Telecommunication) to monitor bank transactions (see page
mestic spying operations by the Bush administration was to be 23).
expected: Clinton-Gore-Reno Democrats (who ignored Clinton- These and other assaults on the rights of Americans were pre-
Gore-Reno spying abuses) are shrieking that the Bush-led Re- saged in the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, which
publicans are driving us headlong into a police state. Bush’s GOP was being incubated early in the Bush administration under
faithful, on the other hand, are automatically and unquestioningly the direction of Vice Admiral John Poindexter. As planned by
buying the president’s assurances that anything he does in the Poindexter, the TIA would have been invested with Orwellian
name of fighting terrorism is good and necessary, regardless of “data mining” and surveillance powers. Exposure of the fright-
whether or not it is constitutional. ening scope of this secret program (see “Watching Your Every
Last year it was revealed that the administration has had the Move,” http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/01-27-
National Security Agency (NSA) conducting surveillance of the 2003/vo19no02_watching.htm) caused Congress to shut the
overseas telephone calls of Americans (see page 25). In June of TIA proposal down. Or so it seemed. However, undeterred, the
this year, the New York Times and other media organs disclosed administration appears to have marched ahead, implementing
another major spying operation, a CIA-directed program that TIA’s most disturbing features piecemeal under other names
uses “Swift” (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial and agencies.

8 THE NEW AMERICAN • JULY 24, 2006

White House, GOP, Dems Court La Raza Radicals
The National Council of La Raza announced on June 21 the stel- which has a very long and sordid history of subversive and anti-
lar political lineup of speakers for its annual national conference American activities, associations, and stances. Consider, for in-
in July. Leading the listed notables are former President Bill stance, Angela Sanbrano, a current member of the NCLR board
Clinton and Karl Rove, President Bush’s political strategist and of directors, who is also listed as a speaker at the La Raza Los
deputy chief of staff. The La Raza press release begins with the Angeles conference. Ms. Sanbrano is a longtime U.S. spokesper-
following paragraph: son for the Farabundo Marti (FMLN)
terrorists of El Salvador and former
The National Council of La Raza executive director of its U.S. affiliate,
(NCLR), the largest national Latino Committee In Solidarity with the Peo-
civil rights and advocacy organiza- ple of El Salvador (CISPES). Sanbrano
tion in the U.S., announced today is also the U.S. representative of the
that former President Bill Clinton, Sao Paulo Forum (SPF), the terror net-
White House Deputy Chief of Staff work which holds annual conferences
Karl Rove, and Los Angeles Mayor in Latin America.
Antonio Villaraigosa are among At the 1996 SPF terrorist gathering
the confirmed speakers for the up- in El Salvador, Angela Sanbrano led
coming NCLR Annual Conference a discussion on immigration entitled
which will be held July 8-11 at the “Solidarity Without Borders.” Sound-
Los Angeles Convention Center in ing like an early proponent of the Bush
Los Angeles, CA. administration’s Security and Prosper-
ity Partnership, she told her comrades:
Other notable speakers include: Sena-
tor Sam Brownback (R-Kan.); Con- We Latinos in the United States
gresswoman Hilda Solis (D-Calif.); need the solidarity of our sisters and
and Walt Disney Company President brothers in Latin America, because
and CEO Bob Iger. Bank of America we are confronted with racist and
is the title sponsor of the NCLR An- anti-immigrant attacks, the fiercest
nual Conference. of the last seventy years.... For this
AP

Constituents may want to ask their La Raza’s annual conference regularly draws reason, today it is necessary to push
elected officials and party leaders marquee political names, such as Hillary Clinton, who forward a solidarity without borders,
to explain the courtship of La Raza, addressed the 2005 gathering in Philadelphia. a mutual solidarity among people.

Hamdan Case: A Victory for Individual Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court handed devotees of individual liberty the Supreme Court,” “define and punish piracies and felonies
a victory with the June 29 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, where committed on the high seas, and offenses against the laws of na-
by a 5-3 margin justices struck down a military tribunal called tions” (such as terrorism), and “make rules for the government
by the president for trying alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. and regulation of the land and naval forces” (including court
Quoting the 1866 case of Ex Parte Milligan, the majority ruled “commissions” under military auspices).
that “the president [cannot] institute tribunals for the trial and The Bush administration’s working strategy regarding people
punishment of offenses, either of soldiers or civilians, unless it has detained seems to be to assume they have no rights — un-
in cases of a controlling necessity, which justifies what it com- less forced to do otherwise. This is the same Bush administration
pels, or at least insures acts of indemnity from the justice of the that has previously asserted in cases fought all the way to the Su-
legislature.” preme Court that detainees who are U.S. citizens are not entitled
And, the majority ruled, there was no emergency that neces- to a trial by jury (Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 2005) or even allowed to
sitated the president constituting a tribunal without first obtaining consult with a lawyer (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004).
the explicit authorization of Congress. In both cases, the Bush administration folded as it faced a los-
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld recognized that although the president ing proposition at the high court. Faced with a mandate to provide
has extraordinary powers during a declared war to allow for swift some sort of trial, the administration opted to create a Star Cham-
prosecution of that war, he has no power to constitute a court ber, where secret evidence could be presented without either the
— even a military court — on a whim. The U.S. Constitution defendant or his attorney being present. How, one wonders, are
reserves to Congress alone the exclusive power to “declare war” defendants supposed to defend against evidence that they aren’t
(which Congress has not done), “constitute tribunals inferior to even allowed to see? ■


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QUICKQUOTES

Whom Are We Arresting?
“Osama bin Laden is happy. In my country today, instead of arresting
terrorists, we’re arresting those who are hunting terrorists.”
European Parliament member Jas Gawronski of Italy is not happy that
the Italian government is seeking the arrest of purported CIA agents for
kidnapping. The Italians claim that Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, the
Egyptian cleric and terrorist suspect who was kidnapped off the streets
of Milan in 2003, was a victim of “extraordinary rendition” by the CIA
agents and underwent torture upon his arrival in Egypt.
AP

Bin Laden Is Still Hunted
“The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever.”
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck put a positive spin on the disbanding of the CIA unit
known as “Alec Station,” which was tasked with finding bin Laden.

War Crimes Panel Member Comments on CIA Use of Nazi Informants After WWII
“Using bad people can have very bad consequences.”
Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and a member of the Nazi War Crimes
and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, says the CIA used former Nazis
as informants after World War II. She also says that documents substantiate that the CIA knew the pseud-
onym and location of the famously malignant Holocaust manager Adolph Eichmann as early as 1958, but
did not provide the information to Israel, which had been seeking him since shortly after the war.

Top UN Official Discusses Attitude of World Toward
United States
“There is currently a perception among many otherwise
quite moderate countries that anything the U.S. supports
must have a secret agenda … and therefore, put crudely,
should be opposed without any real discussion of whether
[it makes] sense or not.”
UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown
responded to assertions by a U.S. official at the UN that
fighting malnutrition and disease is more important than
fighting global warming.
AP

Scholar Predicts More Strife if West Continues Present Course
“Notwithstanding its military superiority, unless the West accepts the East’s right to determine its own
future, the bloodshed that currently marks the contest will continue.”
In addition to issuing the above statement in his recent book, Storm from the East: The Struggle Between
the Arab World and the Christian West, Milton Viorst also traces the centuries-old conflict between
Islam and Christianity.

Iraqi Teen Welcomed at West Point
“I’m going to help rebuild the Iraqi army because most of the officers now in the Iraqi army, they are
not very well qualified. I’ll try to transfer what I learn here.”
Incoming cadet Jameel declined to give his last name to the press
for fear of reprisals against his family in Baghdad as he entered West
Point under a long-running program allowing foreign students to at-
tend U.S. service academies.

Bush Defends Spying on Americans
▲

“The disclosure of this program is disgraceful.”
When President George W. Bush offered this assessment of the me-
dia’s disclosure of the secret CIA “Swift” program for monitoring
bank data, he added that “the American people expect this govern-
ment to protect our constitutional liberties.” ■
— COMPILED BY JOHN F. MCMANUS
AP


Illustartion by Mario Noche

Does the vast, immensely expensive, and largely unaccountable centralized
intelligence system created by the Bush administration really make us safer?

by William Norman Grigg make a phone call describing his experi- operatives — were about as stealthy as
ence to his wife. a homecoming parade. According to the

H
assan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a Nasr, who is also known as Abu Omar, Washington Post, the snatch squad con-
radical Islamic cleric residing is a veteran of mujahideen training camps ducted most of its communications via
in Milan, was on his way to the in Bosnia. At the time of his abduction nonsecure cellphones, permitting the Ital-
mosque for noon prayers when he was from Milan in February 2003, Nasr was ians to re-trace all of their movements.
seized by several men and stuffed into a under surveillance by Italian authorities, They also left behind a thick paper trail
van. From there he was taken to the U.S. who were trying to learn of contacts be- of “hotel registries, car rental receipts,
Air Force Base in Aviano, and flown to tween the radical imam — an Egyptian electronic highway toll passes and other
Egypt, where he was imprisoned for more who had been given refugee status in Italy documents” that were used to identify the
than a year and tortured at the hands of in- — and terrorist cells in Europe. Nasr’s Americans, at least one of whom was posi-
terrogators who have distinguished them- disappearance wrecked the Italian terror- tively identified as a CIA officer. The op-
selves — even in the Middle East — for ist investigation. eratives spent extravagant sums at some of
their pitiless brutality. Eventually released There was little mystery about the Milan’s most luxurious hotels, such as the
to house arrest after the questioning yield- identity of those who had seized Nasr. Principe di Savoia, “where a single room
ed nothing of value, the imam was able to The abductors — a team of up to 22 CIA costs $588 a night, a club sandwich goes


for $28.75 and a Diet Coke adds another Seeing in the Dark
$9.35,” noted the Chicago Tribune. “The Until the creation of the CIA
CIA’s bill at the Principe for seven opera- through the 1947 National In-
The CIA is increasingly involved
tives came to $39,995, not counting meals, telligence Act, the U.S. didn’t in illegal undertakings such as
parking and other hotel services. Another have a permanent intelligence
“extraordinary rendition” — the
group of seven operatives spent $40,098 agency. The task of collecting
on room charges at the Westin Palace, intelligence on foreign threats seizure of suspects for delivery into the
a five-star hotel across the Piazza della was carried out by portions of hands of regimes that practice torture.
Repupplica from the Principe.” the State Department and War
One of the advertised functions of the Department (which in that year
CIA is to provide timely, reliable intelli- was reorganized as the Department of De- nary rendition” — the seizure of suspects
gence not only to the president and key fense). With the emergence of the Soviet for delivery into the hands of regimes that
congressional policymakers, but also Union as a long-term geo-strategic threat, practice torture. So the problem is much
— when necessary and appropriate — to the Truman administration insisted that it worse than simple ineptitude.
close allies, like the Italians. Yet a few was necessary to create a centralized de- Furthermore, during the brief tenure of
weeks after Nasr’s abduction, the CIA partment to gather, analyze, and collate former CIA director Porter Goss — who
told Italy’s counterterrorism police “that intelligence; thus the CIA was born. had been an agency analyst and a chairman
it had reliable information that the cleric At the time of its founding, the CIA of the House Intelligence Committee prior
… had fled to an unknown location in the was advertised as apolitical, devoted to to his appointment as Director of Central
Balkans,” related the December 6, 2005 collecting the facts and providing them to Intelligence — something akin to a purge
Washington Post. This clumsy and im- policymakers; it was to be the very essence took place.
plausible disinformation gambit was in- of patriotic professionalism. As the Milan Goss, who was a devoted ally of the
tended to throw the Italian authorities off caper illustrates, performance standards White House, and an unabashed defend-
the trail of the CIA’s snatch squad, but it for field operatives have declined dramati- er of the Iraq war, “brought with him to
didn’t work. cally, which has to have a negative impact Langley a Praetorian Guard from the
In July of last year, prosecutors and on the agency’s ability to gather reliable House Permanent Select Committee on
judges in Milan issued arrest warrants intelligence. And that incident also illus- Intelligence,” reported the January 4, 2005
— enforceable throughout the entire 25- trates how the CIA is increasingly involved Washington Post. Acting “at the behest of
nation European Union — for 22 CIA in illegal undertakings such as “extraordi- the White House,” Goss and his underlings
operatives, including the
head of the CIA’s substation
in Milan, all of whom were
charged with kidnapping and
other crimes. The scandal
arising from the abduction
helped undermine former
Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, head of one of the
few foreign governments that
strongly supported the Bush
administration. It severely
compromised the CIA’s abil-
ity to operate in and around
Italy. And it wrecked outright
an Italian counterterrorism
effort into what may be an ac-
tive Islamic terrorist network
in Europe.
The CIA is designed to
conduct covert operations and
collect intelligence. But the
conduct of the CIA’s snatch
squad was hardly covert, and
the agency displayed little in-
AP

telligence in its incompetent Italian prosecutor Armando Spataro describes his intention to indict and prosecute the 22 CIA operatives
efforts to cover up the mess it responsible for the February 2003 abduction of radical Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr from the
had made in Milan. streets of Milan.



worked to remove officials consid-
ered politically unreliable from “the
clandestine service, that component
of the CIA that recruits and handles
spies.... Since Goss’s arrival in
Langley, much of the senior man-
agement of the clandestine service
has been fired or has quit, reportedly
to be replaced with more compliant
officials.”
“Appointed to lead the agency in
the midst of a heated presidential
campaign, Goss’s primary mission
… was to yank Langley onto Presi-
dent Bush’s political team,” reported
the November 10, 2005 American
Prospect (citing dozens of sources
from the CIA, State Department,
and other agencies). Within a year
he had presided over the resignation
of as many as 90 senior officials,
driven agency morale to unprec-
edented lows, and “decimated” the
agency’s Near East Division, which
plays a critical role in collecting
and analyzing intelligence from the
Muslim world.
“[Goss’s] immediate goal in 2004

AP
A czar is born: After decades of faithful service to the power elite, John Negroponte was appointed by was to block what had been, until
President Bush to serve as Director of National Intelligence, a position in which he commands more then, a stream of damaging leaks of
than 100,000 personnel scattered across 16 federal agencies, as well as an annual budget of $40 billion. information about CIA intelligence

Intelligence Czar
by William Norman Grigg inspector general concluded that during that time “the Honduran
military committed hundreds of human rights abuses … many of

A
Yale classmate of former CIA Director Porter Goss and a which were politically motivated and politically sanctioned” and
member of the Council on Foreign Relations, John Negro- “linked to death squads.”
ponte has spent the last four decades serving as a “utility In 1989, Negroponte was appointed by the first President Bush
infielder” for the power elite — dutifully performing whatever role as ambassador to Mexico, where he was instrumental in conclud-
is assigned to him. In 1968, as a protege of Henry Kissinger, Negro- ing negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
ponte was tapped to serve as liaison officer between the U.S. and the He was tapped by the second President Bush to serve as UN
North Vietnamese delegations at the Paris peace talks, although he ambassador. He was heavily involved in efforts to build a coali-
resigned in 1973 to protest the lack of security guarantees to South tion for war in Iraq, although he relied less on persuasion than
Vietnam. intimidation: he demanded that Chile and Mexico recall their
During the 1980s, Negroponte served as ambassador to Hon- UN representatives when they opposed the invasion of Iraq, and
duras, whose territory was used as a training ground and staging — according to numerous press accounts — arranged to conduct
area for U.S.-backed rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Marxist San- wiretaps and other surveillance of various UN delegations during
dinista junta. Worthy as the Nicaraguan regime was of extinc- the run-up to the war.
tion, many of the elements involved in the effort, as well as the Following the invasion, Negroponte was chosen to serve as
counterinsurgency program in Honduras, were implicated in vari- U.S. ambassador to Iraq, where he displayed a less-than-acute
ous abuses and atrocities, including narcotics smuggling and the grasp of intelligence by dramatically understating the size, po-
murder of innocent noncombatants. A 1997 report by the CIA’s tency, and resilience of the anti-U.S. insurgency. ■


reports that ran contrary to the White — namely, that critical in-
House’s rosy optimism about Iraq and U.S. formation about the impend-
anti-terrorism efforts,” reported American ing attacks had fallen victim
One particularly troubling provision of
Prospect. “More broadly, the Goss team to “turf wars” and arbitrary the Intelligence Reform Act is that it
clamped down on dissenting views and “walls” within the intelli-
authorizes the use of any federal agency
radically politicized the CIA’s leadership. gence community.
Even worse, say former agency officials, As is pointed out else- for intelligence-gathering or other
Goss has acquiesced in the dismantling of where in this issue (see page covert operations. With a federal budget
the CIA itself, which has bowed too eas- 27), that contention, which
ily to the supremacy of the new director is the basic premise of the of nearly $3 trillion to play with, this
of national intelligence, John Negroponte, 2004 reform measure, is en- provision offers wide latitude for mischief.
the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, who tirely incorrect. Federal law
spent his days in Baghdad contradicting enforcement and intelligence
the CIA’s clear-eyed battle reports.” agencies — including the CIA — provid- attack, while rewarding the policymaking
Specifically, while in Baghdad Negro- ed copious detailed advance information elite that permitted it to occur.
ponte consistently downplayed the po- about the attacks. And this is exactly what has happened.
tential threat to U.S. forces posed by the The critical delinquency prior to 9/11 Under Negroponte, our nation now has,
Iraqi insurgency, while the CIA consis- was not a lack of vital information, or even for the first time, a monolithic, central-
tently warned that the insurrection would a failure to provide it to key decision mak- ized intelligence system. As outlined in
grow stronger and more violent. A suit- ers. Rather, the problem — at least where the 2004 National Intelligence Reform
able illustration of the Bush administra- the protection of the American people is Act, Negroponte commands a huge and
tion’s priorities is found in the fact that it concerned — was the lethal inaction of expanding domain that includes the CIA
demoted the CIA for providing reliable, top-level leadership in Washington. Thus (which is chiefly involved in “human in-
albeit politically unpalatable, intelligence it could be seen as something akin to lu- telligence,” academic research, and covert
about Iraq, while elevating the unreliable nacy to centralize the process even further, operations), the NSA (which is primarily
Negroponte to be our nation’s first “Intel- thereby tightening the grip of the politi- tasked with “signals intelligence” — cryp-
ligence Czar.” cal class on the intelligence community. tology, electronic surveillance, and the
This would be tantamount to punishing like), and the Defense Intelligence Agen-
The Czar’s Domain the field agents, operatives, and analysts cy. It also encompasses other, less-known
In October 2004, at the same time he ap- who had tried desperately to prevent the intelligence bodies, such as the National
pointed Porter Goss to head
the CIA, President Bush
signed into law the “Nation-
al Intelligence Reform Act.”
That measure consolidated
the so-called “intelligence
community” — which em-
ploys more than 100,000
people scattered over 16
federal agencies with an an-
nual budget of at least $40
billion, plus additional un-
specified amounts provided
off-the-books for classified
projects. He later appointed
Negroponte as the first Di-
rector of National Intelli-
gence (DNI).
Negroponte describes his
task as that of “remaking a
loose confederation [of in-
telligence agencies] into a
unified enterprise.” This is
in keeping with one of the
major criticisms leveled at
AP

the intelligence community “Spider’s web”: Swiss official Dick Marty informs the Council of Europe at Strasbourg, France, of his
by the 9/11 Commission investigation into what he called the “spider’s web” of secret CIA detention facilities on the continent.



grams.” This category would Institutionalized Back-channels
include ad hoc programs One particularly troubling provision of the
The Bush-era intelligence leviathan such as the Office of Special Intelligence Reform Act is that it authoriz-
offers substantial reason for concern Plans (OSP), a self-described es not only the president, but also the DNI,
“cabal” established within the to use any federal agency for intelligence-
that it may prove to be a greater menace
Pentagon by civilian officials gathering or other covert operations. With
to our liberties than the terrorist enemy at the Pentagon who fed unre- a federal budget of nearly $3 trillion to
it was supposedly created to destroy. liable intelligence to President play with, and myriad “elements” of fed-
Bush about Saddam Hussein’s eral agencies to hide in, this provision of-
arsenal and supposed connec- fers wide latitude for mischief.
Geospatial-intelligence Agency and Na- tions to al-Qaeda. The CIA, significantly, That provision also creates a potential
tional Reconnaissance Office. disputed the OSP’s sensational prewar re- constitutional problem by permitting a
The act also authorizes the use of “other ports on Iraq — another reason why the presidential appointee — the DNI — act-
offices within the Department of Defense Bush administration has eviscerated the ing with the consent of another appointee
for the collection of specialized national agency and integrated it into the monolith — the head of another executive branch
intelligence through reconnaissance pro- now headed by Negroponte. agency — to redirect funds appropriated

Senator Sgt. Schultz?
by William Norman Grigg

T
hrough no fault of his own, new CIA Director Michael
Hayden bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Colonel
Klink, Commandant of Stalag 13 in the 1960s sitcom Ho-
gan’s Heroes. During Hayden’s May 18 Senate confirmation hear-
ing, Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, performed a decent impression of Sgt.
Schultz, Stalag 13’s endearingly inept prison guard, whose reaction
when exposed to the antics of the allied resistance cell at the stalag
was to exclaim: “I see nothing! Nothing!”
The committee headed by Sen. Roberts is entrusted with the task
of scrutinizing intelligence activities in order to ensure that they are
not only effective in dealing with foreign threats, but that they are
CIA Director Michael Hayden
also legal and constitutional. The chairman’s job is to act in the in-

AP
terests of the public. However, Sen. Roberts clearly believes that
his role is to defend the intelligence community from both public The NSA’s domestic surveillance program, depicted initially as
scrutiny and criticism. a modest and contained effort dealing only with international com-
Prior to his nomination to head the CIA, Gen. Hayden had served munications, was actually an all-encompassing federal dragnet in-
as deputy director of the National Security Agency (NSA), in which discriminately gathering phone calls, e-mails, and other communica-
capacity he headed the administration’s illegal warrantless surveil- tions from millions of Americans into one huge pool of data. Sen.
lance program. Roberts saw nothing — nothing! — amiss in the Roberts, who claims that he has “been to the NSA and seen how the
NSA’s program, which he characterized as “tightly run and closely terrorist surveillance works,” saw nothing — nothing! — improper
scrutinized.” He waxed indignant, however, over the program’s crit- in that arrangement, despite the fact that it unambiguously violated
ics and the whistle-blowers who had disclosed the illegal wiretaps, both the law and the Fourth Amendment.
insisting that “largely uninformed critics” were implicated in a The Bush administration maintains that the Justice Department,
“grave breach of national security.” not Congress or the courts, is the only entity permitted to review the
“I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth NSA’s surveillance program. Yet on May 10, eight days before the
Amendment, and civil liberties,” stated Roberts. “But you have no Hayden hearing, the administration fatally undermined an inquiry
civil liberties if you are dead.” All that stands between Americans and into the NSA program by the Justice Department’s Office of Profes-
those who want to kill them are officials like Gen. Hayden, Roberts sional Responsibility by refusing to grant security clearances to the
insisted, which is why we must simply grant them whatever powers attorneys who would investigate the agency’s actions. This is the sort
the president sees fit to confer on them and then trust their judgment. of thing that would attract the attention of a legitimate congressional
“America can be proud of them,” Roberts declared. “They deserve watchdog. But luckily for the administration, the relevant Senate post
our support and thanks, not our suspicion.” was manned by Senator Roberts — or was that Sgt. Schultz? ■


by Congress for specific purposes. cent Doctrine, among the companies that in a sound grasp of reality.
For example: if the DNI wanted to use eagerly turned over immense quantities of The new intelligence monolith endan-
“elements” within the Department of Ag- personal data to the feds after 9/11 were gers the public, rather than serving its in-
riculture to run a surveillance program or the telecom giants WorldCom and Global terests. Apart from its increasing reliance
a covert operation, and he obtained the Crossing, both of which were mired in ac- on totalitarian methods of surveillance
consent of the secretary of agriculture, he counting scandals. and interrogation that pose grave threats
could operate the program without secur- Former SEC enforcement chief William to the public (which are described in detail
ing funds from Congress, and without con- McLucas told Business Week that the abil- elsewhere in this issue), the new system all
gressional oversight. This isn’t an entirely ity to conceal financial information in the but ensures that critical decisions of war
hypothetical scenario. During the 1980s name of national security will likely lead and peace will be made on the basis of un-
the Reagan administration used subsidies some companies “to play fast and loose sound intelligence, and justified through
offered through the Agricultural Depart- with the numbers.... It could be that you the use of disinformation.
ment’s Commodity Credit Corporation to have a bunch of books and records out The national security system created dur-
help underwrite arms purchases by Sad- there that no one knows about.” Negropon- ing the Cold War was flawed in significant
dam Hussein’s regime at a time when Iraq te is now in a position to court those cor- ways. Now that we are engaged in what
was at war with Iran — exactly the kind rupt corporations, offering SEC waivers in we’re told will be a decades-long “war on
of covert undertaking this provision of the exchange for cooperation — even against terror,” Washington has created a larger,
2004 Reform Act would permit. the privacy interests of their customers. more powerful, and more centralized in-
President Bush granted DNI Negro- telligence organ authorized to expand its
ponte another extravagant grant of power The Intelligence Leviathan mission and budget authority essentially
through a May 5 executive order assigning There was a time when the function of at will. Coupled with the administration’s
to him “the function of the President under intelligence agencies was to tell the presi- doctrine of “unitary executive” power
section 13 (b)(3)(A) of the Securities Ex- dent and other decision-makers what was — under which the president claims the
change Act of 1934, as amended.” That going on in the world, so that they could power to redefine laws and constitutional
seemingly innocuous decree, pointed out make wise choices about foreign policy. principles as he sees fit in the name of na-
the May 23 issue of Business Week, per- Under DNI Negroponte, however, we have tional security — the Bush-era intelligence
mits Negroponte “to excuse publicly trad- a monolithic, thoroughly politicized intel- leviathan offers substantial reason for con-
ed companies from their usual accounting ligence system intended to validate the cern that it may prove to be a greater men-
and securities-disclosure obligations.” decisions made by the “war president,” ace to our liberties than the terrorist enemy
Why is this so important? As the publica- whether or not those decisions are rooted it was supposedly created to destroy. ■
tion observed: “On the same
day the President signed the
[executive order], Porter
Goss resigned as director
of the Central Intelligence
Agency.... Only six days
later, on May 11, USA Today
reported that the National Se-
curity Agency had obtained
millions of calling records of
ordinary citizens provided by
three major U.S. phone com-
panies. Negroponte oversees
both the CIA and NSA in his
role as the administration’s
top intelligence official.”
The ability to grant waiv-
ers of Security and Exchange
Commission (SEC) disclo-
sures gives Negroponte a
very useful tool in seeking to
induce telecommunications
firms and other corporate
interests to cooperate with
domestic surveillance initia-
tives. As Ron Suskind points
out in his book The One Per-


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Emerging Police State
Imprisonment without
trial and the torture of
prisoners are hallmarks
of an oppressive police
state, yet George Bush and
his administration openly
promote these practices.

by Thomas R. Eddlem

C
IA prisoner Benyam Mohammed
al Habashi, an Ethiopian refugee
who obtained residence in Britain
in 1994, hung by his hands from electrical
cords in a secret Moroccan jail in August
2002. After the Muslim convert had been
picked up by Pakistani immigration offi-
cials and given to the American CIA, Paki-
stani jailers had beaten him regularly with
a leather strap as he hung by his hands.
But the Moroccan interrogators acting
on behalf of the CIA found a new way to
torture al Habashi. According to al Ha-
bashi, interrogators brandished a surgical
scalpel, cut his chest, and urged him to
confess to being a terrorist. The interroga-
tors did not stop at cutting his chest: “One Torture as recruiting tool for terrorists: Iraqis staged a street
of [the guards] took my penis in his hand demonstration about the abuse of U.S. detainees in Baghdad last
and began to make cuts. He did it once and year, a signal that torture by American forces is a key spur for
they stood still for maybe a minute, watch- insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq.
ing my reaction. I was in agony, crying....
AP

They must have done this 20 to 30 times.
There was blood all over.” torture to the most barbaric governments being used to keep at least one American
The helpless prisoner described his two- on Earth. citizen in jail today. Americans need to ask
hour ordeal: “They cut all over my private Al Habashi also spent nine months in themselves: “Do I really want my freedom
parts. One of them said it would be bet- two U.S. prisons inside Afghanistan where to hinge upon whether or not some suspect
ter just to cut it off, as I would only breed — he alleges — he was forced to sign con- whimpers out my name as a surgical scal-
terrorists.” The interrogators next poured fessions and swear false testimony against pel is applied to his genitals?”
pain-inducing chemicals over the open other prisoners before being transferred to A detainee under such a situation would
wounds. Guantanamo Bay. understandably be willing to “confess”
Habashi has testified that throughout whatever the interrogator wanted. This ex-
his 18-month incarceration in Morocco Inhumane and Unreliable plains in part why evidence obtained under
his interrogators cut his chest and geni- Why should law-abiding American citi- torture is so notoriously unreliable. In fact,
tals with a scalpel monthly, and subjected zens care about the troubles of this Guan- the Bush administration’s case for the war
him to psychological torture in-between. tanamo Bay prisoner? Because much of against Iraq was based largely upon the
This was al Habashi’s introduction to the his “confession” against his supposed false testimony of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi,
Bush administration policy of “extraordi- “terrorist” confederates was made after his an al-Qaeda training camp official cap-
nary rendition,” where the CIA farms out torture in Morocco, and this “evidence” is tured in Afghanistan who concocted tales



rested — unarmed — at stan promised: “Get wealth and power
the Karachi, Pakistan air- beyond your dreams.... You can receive
The Bush administration promulgated a port by Pakistani immigra- millions of dollars helping the anti-Taliban
new torture policy shortly after 9/11 which tion officials before being forces catch al-Qaida and Taliban murder-
transferred to CIA custody. ers. There is enough money to take care of
permitted any kind of torture by American
Yet the CIA considers him your family, your village, your tribe for the
interrogators short of organ failure or death. an “enemy combatant.” rest of your life.”
More forceful torture techniques received Al Habashi is not the only Boston-based Attorney P. Sabin Willett
case that proves Rumsfeld represents one such innocent client, Adel
only tacit approval and were therefore wrong. A study of Guanta- al Hakim, one of five innocent ethnic
“outsourced” to foreign governments. namo detainees on behalf Uighurs (Chinese Muslims), detained at
of the counsel for some re- Guantanamo. Willett explains:
leased defendants suing the
of “ties” between al-Qaeda and Saddam U.S. government found that only seven Adel is innocent. I don’t mean he
Hussein’s Iraqi regime in order to stop his percent of the detainees whose method of claims to be. I mean the military says
torture sessions. Hussein’s ties to al-Qaeda apprehension had been revealed had been so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled
turned out to be false. captured on the battlefield. that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld The rest had been “captured” by gov- not a terrorist. The whole thing was
told a radio interviewer on June 27, 2005 ernments cooperating with the Bush ad- a mistake. The Pentagon paid $5,000
of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners: “These ministration or by bounty hunters seek- to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.
are people all of whom were captured ing cash rewards for turning in suspected The military people reached this con-
on a battlefield. They’re terrorists, train- terrorists. clusion, and they wrote it down on
ers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, It should hardly be surprising that many a memo, and then they classified the
[Osama bin Laden’s] body guards, would- of those captured turned out to be inno- memo and Adel went from the hear-
be suicide bombers, probably the 20th hi- cent. Coalition forces distributed leaflets ing room back to his prison cell.
jacker, 9/11 hijacker.” promising huge bounties for Afghans and
However, they weren’t all captured on Pakistanis who informed on their neigh- Adel and his four Uighur compatriots
the battlefield. Al Habashi had been ar- bors. One leaflet distributed in Afghani- never received a trial during their more
than four years of incarceration
at Guantanamo. Only after a legal
battle during a habeas corpus peti-
tion was Willett even informed that
the military had already determined
his client was innocent. But the de-
termination did not affect his incar-
ceration. Officials have stated that
they cannot repatriate Adel to China
because he may face torture from
the Chinese government for being
a Muslim, and don’t know where to
send him and his fellow Uighurs. So
back to Guantanamo they went.
In December 2005, Congress
passed a law banning torture by a
veto-proof majority. After signing
the bill, President Bush issued a so-
called signing statement: an official
document in which a president lays
out his interpretation of a new law.
In it Bush said:

The executive branch shall con-
strue Title X in Division A of
the Act, relating to detainees,
AP

Guilty until proven innocent: Three British boyhood friends — known as the “Tipton Three” — were in a manner consistent with the
released by U.S. authorities after more than two years of incarceration at Guantanamo when authorities constitutional authority of the
realized the three had simply been present in Afghanistan to provide humanitarian assistance. President to supervise the uni-


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SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE ON ROMAN HISTORY AND MODERN AMERICA

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